Thursday, May 25, 1944

Mason City Globe Gazette

Other pages in this edition:

Who (or what) are you looking for?

Find old articles about anyone, in the World’s Largest Newspaper Archive!

Other Newspapers from Mason City, Iowa

Other Editions from Thursday, May 25, 1944

Text Content of Page 1 of Mason City Globe Gazette on Thursday, May 25, 1944

Mason City Globe-Gazette (Newspaper) - May 25, 1944, Mason City, Iowa NORTH IOWAS DAILY PAPER EDITED FOR THE HOME i DEPARTMENT Of HISTORY ArtO OtS MOINCS M NEWSfAPER THAT MAKES ALL NORTH IOWANS NEIGHBORS VOL L ana United Preg Full Leued Wirra Five Cents a Copy MASON CITY IOWA THURSDAY MAY 25 1944 Tills Paper Consists of Two NO IS 5500 PLANES HIT GERMANS IN HEAVY ATTACKS Rocket Fire Augments Flak Barrage Coast Searchlights Revealed London of planes estimated to total 5500 bombed the Germans In north and south France Belgium northern Italy and the reich itselt Thursday in great coordinated assaults froin Britain and Italy planes were American Around 4000 assaulted the west wall o Europe with a spearhead of 1000 U S heavy bombers plunging their explosives into rail yards and airfields of northern France and Belgium while Berlin and the west German transport center of Aachen still smouldered from predawn attacks of 500 British heavy bombers By 5 p m it was estimated that 3500 Ions of bombs had been cast upon the Germans since midnight and I he planes were still at work strong forces of Flying Fortresses and bombers attacked railroad yards and 4 airdromes in occupied France and Belgium during the day Four bombers and 12 fighters were lost in bombing the freight yards at Mulhouse Belfort Sar rcguemines M e t z Thionville Charleroi and Blainville in France and Brussels and Liege in Bel gium and airfields near Nancy and Bretigny in France and Ant werp and Brussels in Belgium a U S communique anounced These forces shot down 9 enemy planes Simultaneously heavy bombers from Italy struck ii south France at hte naval base of Toulon graveyard the scuttled French fleet and at Lyon on the Rhone Crest Believed Reached at Ottumwa Floods Receding Des Moines Des Moines and Raccoon rivers were fall ing Thursday at all stations in the Des Moines district except Ot tumwa the weather bureau reported and added barring the oc curence of heavy local pours of rain Thursday Ottum wa will not have a further rise The Des Moines river at Ot tumwa readied a stage of 176 feet at 3 p m Wednesday after which it fell to 174 about 11 oclock Wednesday night and still level at 7 a m was at that Thursday Meanwhile more rain ranging up to 106 inches at Guthrie Cen ter fell at scattered points An inch was reported at Perry The heavy downpour at Newton sent Cherry Creek just west of the city out of its banks again As a result of a halfhour cloudburst at Perry water ran over the downtown curbs and covered the sidewalks The rain continued lightly for another hour Lightning knocked a hole in a residence roof there and a hard wind which accompanied the storm blew down numerous tree branches There were no reports of extreme damage Other precipitation reported by the weather bureau included Du buque 75 of an inch Onawa 51 Clarinda 48 Iowa Falls 38 At lantic and Council Bluffs 35 De corah 33 25 Davenport 18 DCS Moines 14 If the 176 feet reading at Ot tumwa turns out to be the crest It means the peak level reached that point nearly 2 days ahead of schedule Early predictions were that the stage might reach 20 feet which would be 11 feet above flood stage but later estimates were that the river might not rise above 185 feet Estimates of the number persons evacuated from theii homes at Ottumwa up to Wednes day night rose to 1500 Ottumwa Main street mer chaiits are replacing stocks on 1st floor lower shelves but base ments will be flooded until the water has tone down about 3 historic invasion path more feet Rail installations at both cities A few smaller manufacturing were targets plants remained closed Of the larger plants only the Dain Man ufacturing company was on a curtailed schedule with only 1 department able to operate be cause of sandbagged entrances It Is expected to be back to normal operations Friday Church street chief south side regiment medical detachment sent details to help each of the other units where medical atten tion was needed AtEddyville residents who had moved household goods lo 2nd floor rooms began thinking about moving downstairs again as the revce augmented by a hastily erected 3foot barricade appeared equal to the flood Health inspectors declared more than 1040 wells in Des Moines unsafe until they have been pumped and chlorinated Clean up and sterilization of at least 00 homes will be necessary after lood waters have receded Farmers volunteers and county workers appeared to be win ning their fight to prevent a break n a 2mile levee southeast of the city near the Iowa Power and ight Co plant where a break ivould have meant the flooding of 15000 acres of rich crop land In Des Moines more than 550 persons were given typhoid fever immunization treatments Wednes day and 250 more were expected to take the treatment Friday At Ottumwa about a dozen women residents protested Wed nesday night to Colonel Peil about sandbagging methods in their neighborhood They claimed the laying of a sandbag wall for about a block between a building and a high point along the railroad was holding 4 feet of water in their homes and declared the tempor ary dike was unnecessary The women threatened to get a bulldozer or other equipment and knock out the wall Colonel Peil explained he was only doing his best to protect the maximum amount of property and ordered military police to guard the dike GROUND FORCES GAINING IN NEW GUINEA BURMA Chinese Forces Appear Desperately Beset in Battle for Loyang By J B KRUEGER Associated Press War Editor American ground troops in I Burma and New Guinea pressed persistently forward Thursday to clear Japanese from 2 important objectives but on a 3rd allied ront Chinese forces appeared desperately beset in Loyang A Tokyo broadcast said the north China city gateway into central China was encircled and its fall expected in a few days The Chinese high command ad mitted the encirclement but said counterattacking Chinese had killed 1000 of the enemy Despite the hard blows the Chi nese were suffering in a big Jap Forces From Main Italian Front Join Beachhead Troops in Drive on Rome NAZIS RETREAT TRY TO AVOID BEING TRAPPED anese offensive Gen Shang Chen head of the Chinese military mis sion to the U S declared flatly it was impossible for Japan to knock China out of the war The Burma fighting continued its slow bitter way with Lt Gen Joseph Stilwclls men fighting streetbystrcet to clear Myltky ina of Japanese Control of this city in is vital to his plan for link the stillincomplete Ledo Processions miles long of up lo 1000 Flying Fortresses and Libera tors shepherded by at least 500 fighters encountered suddenly increased resistance from the in vasionthreatened c r 6 u n d as they smote ruthlessly at enemy military targets close to this great f I The enemydid not care to risk his dwindling air force but aug mented the regular flak barrage with curtains of rocket fire de stroying several of the great 4 engined craft in green and black explosions British night bombers attacked the choked rail yards ot Aachen in western Germany Wednesday night in 2 waves spaced 2 hours apart They spotted another sign ot nazi invasion blazing strings of searchlights all along the coast The strikeof the Mediterrane an allied air forces from the south was the 2nd time in 2 days that Hitlers roofless fortress had been under attack from 2 direc tions Liberators covered the Car noulcs yards 15 yards northeast of Toulon with bombs Fortresses joined other Liberators in attacks on the Lyon area results of which were not immediately re ported More Liberators poured fragmentation bombs on a north Italian airdrome at Piacenia 40 miles southeast of Milan Still anotherformation of Lib erators blasted Monfalcone har bor 15 miles northeast of Trieste on the Italian Adriatic coast with high explosives Oil installations on the mainland at Porto Margherila near Venice also were attacked Mustangs and Lightnings cov ered the heavy bombers in their farflung operations south Mediterranean from allied the force headquarters announced that 3300 sorties were flown Wednes day rather than the 2950 record previously announced Lyon is a key railcenter feed ing southern French ports and is 170 miles into the interior o France The German radio told of a bic air attack in southern Germany from the west and the Swiss re ported explosions from the Reich border city of Mnhlhausen indi cating a simultaneous heavy blow at Germany itself Brussels and Charleroi were among the Belgian targets of the American daylight armadas the naxiconlrolled Belgian radio said 1 Miles long processions of Ameri can bombers filled the channel skies Thursday morning on this 7th consecutive day of renewed preinvasion assault and it ap peared possible that the record of Wednesday when 7000 planes dumped 5500 tons of bombs on the rGermans might be ap proached The British bombed targets in occupied territory as well as the major railyaids of Aachen fun nelling traffic to the invasion coast and Berlin Wednesday night They lost 28 bombers German defenses split by co ordinated attacks on Berlin Vi enna and the Paris environs Wednesday and strained addition ally by the massive RAF blow Wednesday night consisted Thursday of a gigantic artillery barrage thrown up in a vain ef fort la fend off he fresh invading ABMrican araufla side1 heavily small amounts of water have crossed It Lt Col John J Eiel district army engineer in command of 250 army engineers and 10 units of amphibious equipment sent into the area Wednesday said that sailors from the Ottumwa naval air station had done such good work that he was moving his de tachment down stream where it might be of more help Dynamiting of a levee to re lieve the pressure held the dam age to downtown Ottumwa busi ness buildings to nothing more than wet basements at least the time being In Des Moines the rive r dropped 3 inches Wednesday after cresting Tuesday night and most of the danger seemed past unless the pressure should finally become too great for water soaked levees Estimates of damage and crop loss from the series of tornadoes and floods which moved in on Iowa a week ago Thursday now exceed 530000000 Eleven lives have been lost Orchard elementary school at Ottumwa was closed as flood waters nearly surrounded it and Irvinir school was closed Thurs day as a health measure because the basement was flooded Dr Carl F Jordan of the state department of health took a sup ply typhoid serum to Ottumwa for use at a clinic set up for the benefit of flood sufferers Three state guard units were HARDWARE NEED SURVEY MADE Appeals Planned to Aid Iowa Flood Areas Phillip R Jacobson secretary ot thelowa Retail Hardware associa tion Thursday began a survey of flood damage in 21 Iowa counties in order to make an appeal to the War Production Board at Wash ington D C hardware items or priorities on needed for re habilitation of homes business places and farms Backing the appeal he said is A J Loveland Des Moines direc tor of the state AAA committee A large list of items will be needed for this program Mr Jac obson stated Including fencing posts wire staples shovels small tools roofing cook many other articles stoves and highway with the old Burma road into supplystarved China Japa nese patrols were thrown back in attcinpts to penetrate allied po sitions around Myitkyina air drome captured last week In New Guinea men of the 6th U S army crossed the Tor river and advanced against artillery and machine gun fire toward Z airfields on Maffin bay These with the field on captured Wakde island nearby would strengthen Gen Douglas MacArthurs posi tion for further advances toward the Philippines Elsewhere over the immense stretches of the Pacific the wai was all in the air The current scope of air operations was out lined by Navy Secretajy Forrcstal who saidthat 2005 sorties were flown by navy commanded planes last week alone MacArlhuis flyershi Triik with 84 tons of bombs de spite interception hy 40 fighters 2 of which were shot down in halfhour fight Also hit wen targets near Wewak Kaxieng Talili bay and on Biakisland in the Schoutens west of Wakdc Central Pacific airmen bombee positions in the Kurile islands li the north ot Japan The bodies of 570 more Japa nese testimony to the American bypassing technique were foun on Bougainville in the Solomons Near Hollandia on New Guinc were found other dead Japanese victims of starvation and disease Merging of 2 Fronts Described Special Announcement May Be Made Sunday by German DNB Agency 6 Cats and 2 Mice 1 t T on duty In the area Company H of Oskaloosa went to Eddyville company G of Ottumwa was ac tive at home and the Fairfield 1st Neighbors Complain Teacher Has 12 Dogs The German DNB instructed German London agency has editors by radio lo stand by for a possible special announcement Sunday at p m a m Central war the Daily Her ald reported The nature of the expected announcement was not mentioned The reported broad cast was linked by some observ ers with the impending allied in vasion of western Europe but the i ministry of information said it had interpreted the message merely as a standby order for the start of DNBs routine news re port ALLIES SMASH on the above map show the direction of drives which marked up new successes Thursday for allied troops battling the Germans in Italy By UNITED PRESS Where do you think youre joingV came up here to make con act with the Anzio forces Well you made it Two American soldiers met on the Italian coastal highway 5 niles south of the Mussolini ca nal Thursday and with that la conic exchange marked the his toric juncture of the main allied ith army with Anzio beachhead forces The meeting was re ported by the Columbia Broad casting System CBS Correspondent Eric Sev areid reported the meeting in special broadcast from the front He identified the Z soldiers as Lt Francis Buckley Philadelphia attached to the main 5th army and Capt Ben Zimmemer Hono lulu from the beachhead Zimmemer walking south on he highway at the head of a Beachhead patrol spotted Buck ey coming toward him and gave Jim the usual Gl greeting Where the hell do you think rourc going And that was II Sevareid re ported adding that within a mat er of minutes the 2 soldiers were surrounded by a knot of armored cars jeeps and trucks from the converging forces Lt Gen Mark W Clark com mander of the allied 5th army was on the spot almost imme diately after the contact was made The nazis had blown up a small bridge across one ol the canals crissc r o s s i n g the Ponlinc For about an hour after Buck ley and Zimmemer me alliet units from both forces kept piling up along the rnad including a British reconnaissance parly from he Airzio side The GIs who had fought the way up 60 miles from the soutl 14 days had only one ques tion for their beachhead com rades Wheres that Auzio beer wev been hearing about Signal corps men from both sides laid their wires almost as soon as the juncture was made Sevareid reported marshes but troops met ho the converging resistance apart from a few isolated German snip crs Sevareid said March of 60 Miles in 14 Day Offensive Is Marked Up for Allies By EDWARD KENNEDY Allied Headquarters Naples alii army merged its 2 Anzio beachhead and he main force above hursday for a unified push on Rome Americans from the main front established contact with U S pa rols from the beachhead allied icadquarters announced as the climax of a lightning march which burst through GO miles of erman defenses in a 14 day of fensive and in its last stages saw he enemy beating a hasty re rcat from the entire coastal belt Jelow Aimo One of the 1st objectives of Gen Sir Harold Alexanders of fensive the reachimr of the beachhead thus was attained after 2 weeks of the hardest figlUiiifr Another draw ing ot more and more German troops into battle as D day ap proaches for allied troops in Eng in the making Allied airmen said a stream of enemy reinforcements was pour ing southward from northern Italy The swift bulging of a con tinuous allied line to within 20 miles of Rome apparently had spurred the Germans in massing fresh concentrations of men and material above the former beach head position to make the light Right now its possible to tele phone from Anzio to Naples he said And if anyone wants a peaceful ride through the Italian countryside lie can ride clown lo Naples on the road So we are all together on one long front PEARL HARBOR BLAST REPORTED Explosion Destroys Several Small Boats Churchills Remarks on Spain Studied Washington Min ister Winston Churchills surprise defense of Generalissimo Francis Washingloii Destruction of to Franco of Spain was believed several small vessels in an ex plosion of ammunition at Pearl Los Angeles Grac Senger 45 year old school teacher was accused in justice court of harboring 12 dogs 6 cats and a pair of white mice Neighbors In making their com plaint said the dogs damaged their lawns and the cats whooped it up noisily all night The mice They wandered out and fright ened women Harbor Sunday was announced by the navy Thursday The navy said the explosion and fire occurred while ammunition was being unloaded from one of a group of landing craft tied togeth er in the harbor There was some loss of life and a number of men were injured the navy said but no names were announced pending notification of next of kin Additional Information on the explosion the navy said will be announced later Meantime court of inquiry is investigating in some quarters Thursday to be Buy War Savings Bonds and Stamps from your ClobeGaxette carrier boy RECONXAISSAXCE GIRL Hollywood McKen zie curvaceious singer on Groucho Marx radio show has been elect ed reconnaissance girl by the Fort Eenning Ga intelligence and reconnaissance platoon She was described as the girl wed like most to with make a reconnaissance Body of lowan Found 7 Miles Downstream Waterloo WP Firemen and boat club members in a searching party Thursday afternoon recov ered the body of Walter G Gal lery 34 Waterloo from the Ce dar river about 7 miles down stream from the point where he and his son Walter Jr 12 drowned late Sunday in a boating accident The sons body is still being hunted THE PILOT LIVEDrCapt ThurrnanFMoiTison of Memphis Tenn was rescued from this P47 Thunderbolt which burst into flames at takeoff from its British base Weather Report British attempt to protect allied interests during the invasion of Europe But antiFranco sources de nounced it as appeasement and charged that Franco Spain was a threat to the allies I have no sympathy with those who think it is clever or even funny to insult and abuse the gov ernment of Spain Churchill told commons Wednesday Spains in ternal politics are a matter for the Spaniards alone Even some British quarters here wondered why Churchill had felt il necessary to apologize to the Franco regime in such terms Julio Alvarez Del Vayo the last foreign minister of the republic oC Spain before Franco triumphed in 1339 told the United Press The protective measures which have been taken by the allies these days to protect the invasion will be incomplete as long as they permit an outpost of Hitler to remain at their backs This is what Spain lias converted itself into be cause of nnzi penetration and Franquista outpost of Hitler ptaced right at the rear guard ot the allied armies Officials here declined to dis cuss Churchills remarks on Spain but it was believed that his hope for extremely fertile trade be tween Spain and Great Britain during and after the war struck a slightly sour note with those who recently tried lo get a complete embargo of Spanish wolfram ship ments lo Germany 2 NAZIS ARE CAUGHT ESCAPE War Prisoners Get Out of Algona Guardhouse Des Moiues German war prisoners escaped from the guard house at the Algona prison camp early Thursday after beini returned Wednesday from a pre vious escape The Des Moines FBI office said the 2 Braun 24 and HarrI Schippmann disappeared from the prison camp Saturday and were captured at the Mike Klepper farm f miles cast of West Bend Wednesday WERE FIRST CAPTURED ON WEST BEND FARM West Bend German war prisoners who escaped from for the Italian capital German prisoners taken since the start of the offensive have mounted to 10000 headquarters said Fo 11 ow i nn u e d n c s d a y s dawn lo dusk air assaults on Ions columns oC German convoys when more than GOO vehicles were de stroyed or damaged allied air forces again raised havoc with enemy transport and by late aft ernoon reported the destruction of 233 more Warhawks caught 2 streams of v c h i c 1 c s fleeing northward bumper to bumper in the area of Artena 3 miles south ot Val inontont and left 100 of them in flames A special headquarters com munique announced the contact by patrols a few miles southeast of the bridgehead on the coastal highway between Tcrracina and Anzio Troops of the bridgehead have broken through the powerful de fenses built by the enemy to pre vent the bridgehead force par ticipating in our advance from the main front headquarters said The battle proceeds and it should not be long before the 2 fronts are firmly established as one when the 5th army will then develop even greater strength an official spokesman said Already the beachhead 20 miles the Algona Iowa prison camp i below Rome was breaking out to FORECAST Mason C i t r Thuhdershowers Thursday afternoon Thursday night and early Friday cooler Friday Iowa Thundcrshowers Thursday A J Cl J 17 night Friday mostly cloudy Admiral Finds Family with showers in the extreme cast i IT part cooler west and central Ullt OH HlS parts Thursday night slightly j cooler Friday Minnesota Showers west and showers or thundershowers east were taken into custody at the Mike Klepper farm 5 miles cast of here Thursday and returned to the camp under soldier guard Klepper saw the men in his barn yard and called to his sons Emil and Henry They in turn notified town officials who helped arrest the men One attempted to escape when ordered to halt but quickly gave hiiiiscU up when surrounded The prisoners one a German pilot and the other a paratrooper were lodged in the city jail here while Palo Alto Sheriff Bert Mont gomery notified prison camp of ficials Town Marshal Irvin De Witt said that the prisoners told him they escaped from the camp Mon day by crawling under the wire fence that surrounds the prisoners compound They had slept in barns and had stolen food they told him portion Thursday night Friday mostly cloudy with showers ex treme cast portion in the fore noon slightly cooler southwest and extreme west portions Thursday night IN MASON CITY GIobcGnzetle weather statistics Max Wednesday 77 Min Wednesday night 59 At 8 a m Thursday 62 YEAR AGO Maximum 61 Minimum 43 Precipitation 10 Visit Since War Start Monrovia Cal Ad miral Raymond A Spruancc re cently came back from his central Pacific command for his first visit home since the war startedIn stead of a heros welcome he found his family didnt know he was coming and had gone out for dinner His family had moved here since the outbreak of war so he was a stranger in town An ex perienced husband the admiral raided the ice box then moped around until the folks came home Divorces Husband Who Spanked Her In Public Hollywood dan cer Aileen L Ketherton was free Thursday from the husband who she said pulled up her dress and spanked her in front of company to show hoxv a wife should be kept in line Mrs Netherton won an Interlocutory divorce decree from Cpl Joseph B Nctherlon the spanking husband to whom she was wed 11 months He is now overseas the east with Cisternn flanked deeply on both sides and attacked at the outskirts in a frontal as sault The German communique hint ed at a new threat above the beachhead declaring allied troops had landed behind the German lines on the western wing of the beachhead but had been annihilat ed There was no allied confir mation Earlier the Germans had an nounced withdrawal from the en tire coastal strip between the beachhead aud Terracina The communique said the allies were employing enormous tank for mations in a scries of crushing attacks German troops who fought lo hold Tcrrncina 22 miles below the beachhead were reported fleeing northward through Priverno in the direction of Valmontome They I sought to escape encirclement and i annihilation as the main front rolled forward threatening to pin them against the eastern edges of the Pontine marshes Troops of the main front over whelming powerful enemy resist ance have fought their way for ward relentlessly since the night of May 11 over some of the most difficult terrain of the whole Italian campaign said the special LOWREY IS ELECTED Homer Low Des Mnines rev Grinncll city clerk was i elected president ot the Iowa and Municipal Accounting Officers communique An official spokesman added that the beachhead established by surprise landings Jan 22 had played an important role in the current offensive as its threat to the German rear had prevented the Germans fiom massing full strength against the drive forward through Cassina and Formia While the first land contact with the beachhead was established Buy War Savings Stamps from your GlobeGacelle I association at the groups 6th anj since last January the communi carrier boy nual meeting here Wednesday Iquc made no mention of the con